Our recent cruise took us through Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Poland, Germany, Denmark and Norway. For me, it was the cruise of a lifetime for I got to walk the soil that my father’s family had trod in Sweden and the soil of my mother’s family in Norway. As in much of Europe, we saw a mix of modern buildings and centuries old ones, rode on modern coaches and strolled through cobblestoned streets. It was a mixture also, of ideas that I found both interesting and perhaps frightening, given what is taking place in our own country.
In Russia, little was said of the Soviet days when the people suffered under the yoke of Communism. It was carefully mentioned by our guide as just another period in history. Under the Communists there had been a shortage of housing in the cities, just as there were shortages of everything else. She did not speak of the long lines that the people had to stand in daily to get their day’s ration of food, but she did talk about the communal apartments that everyone other than members of the hierarchy in the Communist Party were forced to live in.
Four to six families were assigned randomly to a single apartment owned by the government, each family with its own bedroom, but sharing a single bathroom, a kitchen with several stoves (one per family), and a single dining table around which they all gathered to eat. With the fall of Communism, she said that a family living in the apartment was allowed to take ownership of the apartment, but only if every family member agreed. Then it could be sold or rented or lived in as they wished. She never explained how it was determined which family of the half dozen living in the apartment would be awarded this opportunity.
I read recently that this concept has been borrowed in California, that bastion of budding Socialism (Communism was a form of Socialism as the USSR was called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). There, for only $1200 a month, you can rent a bunk bed with a flat screen T.V. at the foot of it and a month’s worth of Ramen noodles. Your room, the bathroom, the kitchen, all are shared with others. Your actual individual space, rented for your $1200, is the bed and the T.V., and you are allowed no guests. In a three bedroom apartment there would be at least eleven other individuals cooking Ramen noodles with you in the kitchen each night! This may be based on the Communist model, but the landlord is raking in a very Capitalistic $14,400 a month for each three bedroom apartment he owns! Not bad for him. Not so good for the person on the Ramen noodle diet!
The guide in Estonia, formerly a part of the glorious USSR, was very clear about Estonians’ view of Communism. When Russ asked her if there remained any nostalgia for the old Communist days, she answered with a resounding “No!” She then explained to the entire bus that, worried that Russia could invade and seize part of Estonia as it has seized part of the Ukraine, Estonia was very careful to first join NATO (thereby getting the U.S. on their side) before then also joining the European Union. They are leaving nothing to chance, unless, of course, they are invaded during the term of a wishy-washy president like Obama, who chooses not to get involved even in the invasion of a NATO member nation!
The guide in Germany, who gave us a quick bus tour of Berlin, was a former East Berliner who didmiss the Communist rule. She glibly informed us that under the Communist East German government, everyone had an apartment, but now, especially in Berlin, the capital, they are so expensive! Also the Communists thought it was very important for everyone to be educated, she informed us, so everyone went to school. Now, she lamented, if you live on a farm in Germany you may not get an education anymore! Now, Russ and I have traveled throughout Germany a myriad of times and we have yet to see a farm so isolated that its children can not get to the nearest village school which is probably only a few miles away. Germany is big by European standards, but not very large by U.S. standards. I don’t know if anyone on the bus bought that bogus claim, but neither we nor our traveling companions the Englishes, who have also been more than once to Germany, believed her.
Many of the countries, especially the Scandinavian countries, have some kind of Socialistic government that includes “free” college, “free” healthcare, “free” paid parental leave. In each case things were a little different. “Free” college in Denmark was for state universities, but the tests to get in were so difficult and the grade requirement so high that most parents have to pay to send their children to private universities. Not supported by government backed loans, however, these schools are less expensive that many of our universities. “Free” healthcare is not totally free in most of the countries in that the patient has to pay some costs just as Medicare recipients in the U.S. do. Also, we are talking about countries whose population is in the 5 – 10 million range, not the 330 million range that we have in the U.S. And all of the guides admitted that their taxes were very high, taking from 50% to 70% of their salaries, and that they always complained about them.
In Denmark, most people ride bicycles, even in the winter and for a very good reason. The license plates for a car cost about one third of the price of the car. So, if you bought a $30,000 car, every year you would have to cough up $10,000 to put license plates on it. Most Danes, highly taxed as they are, cannot afford that. So while we saw cars, we saw far more bikes! And we were warned to watch out for them as they seem to follow none of the rules that cars follow, such as giving the right of way to pedestrians.
The other problems of “free” stuff was not discussed, but most of us are already aware of the problems. In the U.K., for instance, two babies were allowed to die, actually starved to death, because U.K.’s national health system had declared nothing could be done to help them and thus they stubbornly refused to allow the parents to remove the children and take them to countries who were willing to try to treat them. That is the greatest problem with a national health system. If the “government” pays the bills (albeit with your money), the government decides who gets treatment and who dies. As has been pointed out, had the great grandson of Queen Elizabeth needed treatment, he would have been immediately flown to the U.S. or another country. Those at the top of the pecking order do not have to abide by the rules that they impose on the rest of us. That, my friends, is the key to socialism.
Canada, our neighbor to the North is often touted as having a good, national healthcare system that we should emulate. However, only half as many Canadians as Americans actually get in to see a specialist within a month. Scheduled surgeries take even longer. Thus it is not surprising that those who can afford to pay for the surgeries themselves come to the U.S. Although the number varies from year to year, last year the number of Canadians coming here for surgeries was about 65,000. How many more would have come here if they could have afforded it?
Socialism always sounds good. Equality for all! Everyone on a level playing field. But think about that. We are all different. Some of us are smarter than others. Some of us are more talented than others in varying fields from music to technology. Some of us are creators who come up with new ideas that revolutionize our world. Some of us are hard-working. Some of us are lazy. Some of us are drug addicts or alcoholics and cannot hold down a job. Some of us just don’t want to work as long as the government will give us food and housing. Why should we all be treated the same? The American dream has always been that if you work hard you can achieve success. And that has always worked for us. It is only in the last few years that the idea has arisen that no one’s feelings should be hurt because they cannot do what someone else can. If a Bill Gates can create something that makes him a ton of money and I cannot, is it fair for him to have to give me enough money so that I am as rich as he? I don’t think so.
I don’t want someone sitting at home, watching T.V., eating and drinking themselves into health problems and collecting a guaranteed government salary that I, from my hard work all of my life, am providing for them. Let them get out and work themselves. Work is not only physically healthy, it also is mentally healthy. People who are earning their own money through work feel better about themselves. Life is happier for them. And what they rent or buy, they take care of because it is something they have provided, not something that has been given to them for nothing.
Socialism has never worked in any country which has tried it. The ideas of Marx are those of someone who has not achieved on his own and therefore wants to take away from those who have. Socialism destroyed the U.S.S.R. and the eastern bloc countries it controlled. Socialism has destroyed Venezuela, once the richest country in South America. Socialism is still being used in Scandinavian countries, but more and more they are modifying it. New work requirements are being added in some countries and others have backed away from Socialism towards more capitalistic systems. A young college student who was our guide in one Norwegian town laughed that he liked the free college now, but when he got a real job and had to start paying taxes, he didn’t think he would be so happy with it. I don’t think most Americans would like it very much either. There are other answers to college debt and to the cost of healthcare. Let’s find and use them and leave money in the pockets of working Americans where it belongs.